Marla Bilonick

Executive Director, Latino Economic Development Center

Washington, DC

Marla Bilonick was named LEDC’s Executive Director in 2014. She rejoined LEDC in 2012 as Director of Small Business Development after first working at the organization in 1999 as a microloan officer. As Executive Director, she leads LEDC’s regional efforts to drive the economic and social advancement of low- to moderate-income Latinos and other D.C. and Baltimore area residents by equipping them with the skills and tools to achieve financial independence.

Prior, she worked for Seedco with businesses in Lower Manhattan New York that were impacted by the 2001 attacks of 9/11 so that they could be retained and could grow. As director of the Upper Manhattan Business Solutions Center,her team worked with entrepreneurs in Harlem to launch and expand businesses. Her work in microfinance for DAI in settings such as Bolivia, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, and her native Panama provides her with cultural sensitivity that is useful for working with LEDC’s core constituents. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and received her Master of Arts degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies-SAIS.

Marla is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Latino Community Asset Builders-NALCAB and a member of the Montgomery County Comprehensive Economic Strategy Advisory Group. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Housing Trust’s ICE-Institute for Community Economics—a CDFI offering pre-development, acquisition, rehabilitation, bridge loans and more to create community land trusts, shared equity and permanently affordable housing. She’s a former Aspen Institute Emerging Leaders in Microbusiness-ELM2 Fellow and is a graduate of the Citi/Opportunity Finance Network (OFN)’s Leadership Program for Opportunity Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Marla currently serves on Capital One Bank’s Community Advisory Council and is a member of the Equity Committee of the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN)’s Board of Directors. She was named a Community Champion for the Washington, DC metropolitan area by Capital One Bank in 2015.
Marla resides in the Maryland suburbs with her husband and three children, Matteo, Luca, and Romy.